A passion for prodigals

Over the past 15 years, Rob and Dianne Parsons have spoken to hundreds of thousands of people on issues that affect families. In the autumn of this year, a new event will be launched based on Rob’s bestselling book, ‘Bringing Home the Prodigals’. Rob says he is more excited about this tour than anything Care for the Family has done before. That’s quite a statement! Here he explains why:

Over the past 15 years, Rob and Dianne Parsons have spoken to hundreds of thousands of people on issues that affect families. In the autumn of this year, a new event will be launched based on Rob’s bestselling book, ‘Bringing Home the Prodigals’. Rob says he is more excited about this tour than anything Care for the Family has done before. That’s quite a statement! Here he explains why:

Almost every home will, at some stage, be able to relate to the parable of the prodigal son. It is an issue that will affect nearly all of us.

If I could have any prayer granted with regard to this initiative, it would be that the parents of young children would come to these events. We need to be praying for our children long before they hit the possible ‘prodigal’ years, and there are lessons we can learn that may just make it a little easier to manage those difficult times or even avoid them completely. Other parents will come to ‘Bringing Home the Prodigals’ with teenagers who are testing them to the extreme, and yet others whose children are actually breaking their hearts.

Two giants that stalk parents
One mother told me her experience: “I hear other parents talk with sadness about the day when their kids leave home and the nest will be empty, and yet I cannot wait for my daughter to go. I can’t honestly tell you that I do feel love for this child.”

But as this woman was speaking to me, I became convinced that what she was really saying was, ‘Help me to love this girl, who at times seems to have ruined my life. She has broken my heart, yet she is part of me – I cannot live without loving her.’

The truth is that many of us have been caught like rabbits in the headlights of a car by two powerful emotions – guilt and fear.

The guilt whispers to us, ‘You have failed as parents. If only you had done this or hadn’t done that, things would have turned out differently.’ Guilt fails to remind us that God, the perfect parent, has trouble with his children too.

And hot on the heels of guilt is fear … ‘What if my children make a mistake that will ruin their lives?’ … ‘What if they are hurt physically or become ill?’ … ‘What if they turn their back on my values?’

I believe with all my heart that ‘Bringing Home the Prodigals’ has the potential to make a real difference in the life of everyone who attends - whether at the moment our kids seem perfect in every way, or whether, even though we love them, we find it hard to like them just now!

A wider issue
But the issue of prodigals is much wider than parent-children relationships. Some of our prodigals will be our friends, brothers or sisters, or even our own parents. And, of course, the issue reaches far beyond the prodigals themselves – it concerns the kind of churches we have and the incredible prophecy given by an old man years ago: “When the Father’s house is filled with the Father’s love, the prodigals will come home.” In the book I put it like this: One of the most sobering aspects of local church life is the realisation that the way we have dealt with each other has caused some of our children to turn their back on what we believe. Through much of their young lives they have seen Christians fight each other and argue over the insignificant. They have silently watched as church members have criticised each other, hurt each other, and ostracised those they were meant to love. Many of us have developed a critical spirit in our dealings with others that makes it hard for our children to believe that God can love unconditionally.

During the ‘Bringing Home the Prodigals’ evenings we will be praying that our churches will rediscover the issues that really matter to God and become places of forgiveness, grace and a refuge for the prodigals. But to achieve this we have to face the issue of the elder brother in the parable - the one for whom the rules and regulations were more important than love - and pray with all our hearts that, when our prodigals do come home, they meet the Father before they meet him.

When prayer is all we have left
Dianne and I do hope you’ll join us at one of these events. It will be an evening filled with praise and prayer, and I will bring the message on prodigals that I believe God has laid on my heart. The details of the tour are alongside. As well as the venues listed we’ll also be visiting Plymouth, London, Bristol, Belfast, Lincoln, Cardiff and Birmingham in Spring 2004.

I believe something is going on in our nation with regard to the prodigals: there is a wind blowing in the tree tops; prayer groups for prodigals are springing up; our churches are re-examining whether we have made it easy for some of our prodigals to leave and hard for them to return, and thousands of parents are being released from false guilt and are finding fresh hope. At Care for the Family our responsibility is to contribute our piece to the jigsaw - the book and events are our contribution.

Join us if you possibly can. I have no doubt that at least some of these venues will sell out quickly, so please book early. And if you can’t be with us, then please pray as you see the tour go around the country, asking that God, in his mercy, will, from the four corners of the earth - bring home the prodigals.

Rob Parsons
Executive Director

Taken from the Care for the Family magazine, September 2003